Table Of ContentHandbook of Measurement Issues
in Family Research
Copyrighted Material
Handbook of Measurement Issues
in Family Research
EDITED BY
Sandra L. Hofferth
University of Maryland at College Park
Lynne M. Casper
University of Southern California
~
LAWRENCE ERLBAUM ASSOCIATES, PUBLISHERS
2007 Mahwah, New Jersey London
Copyright © 2007 by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in
any form, by photostat, microform, retrieval system, or any other
means, without prior written permission of the publisher.
Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., Publishers
10 Industrial Avenue
Mahwah, New Jersey 07430
www.erlbaum.com
Cover design by Tomai Maridou
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Handbook of measurement issues in family research / edited by
Sandra L. Hofferth and Lynne M. Casper.
p. cm.
Based on a conference held in Bethesda, Md. in Nov. 2003 on
"Measurement Issues in Family Demography".
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-S05S-5617-X
1. Family-Research-Methodology-Congresses. 2. Family life
surveys-Methodology-Congresses. 3. Family demography-United
States-Congresses. I. Hofferth, Sandra L. II. Casper, Lynne M.
HQlO.H24 2006
306.S5072-dc22 2005044691
Books published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates are printed on acid-free
paper, and their bindings are chosen for strength and durability.
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 S 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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Contents
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xiii
Part I: Introduction
1 Playing Catch-Up: Improving Data and Measures for Family
Research 3
Lynne M. Casper and Sandra L. Hofferth
Part II: Marriage and Cohabitation
2 Measuring Cohabitation: Does How, When, and Who You 19
Ask Matter?
Jean Tansey Knab and Sara McLanahan
3 Measuring Cohabitation in Add Health 35
Michael S. Pollard and Kathleen Mullan Harris
4 Studying Marriage and Commitment With Survey Data 53
Paul R. Amato
5 Conceptualizing and Measuring Marital Virtues 67
AlanJ. Hawkins, Blaine]. Fowers, Jason S. Carroll, and
Chongming Yang
6
Assessing Couple and Marital Relationships: Beyond Form 85
and Toward a Deeper Knowledge of Function
Scott M. Stanley
v
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vi CONTENTS
7 Developing Measures of Healthy Marriages and Relationships 101
Kristin A. Moore, Jacinta Bronte~ Tinkew, Susan Jekielek,
Lina Guzman, Suzanne Ryan, Zakia Redd, Jennifer Carrano,
and Greg Matthews
Part III: Separation and Divorce
8 Measuring Separation and Divorce 125
Larry Bumpass and Kelly Raley
9 The Visible Hand: Editing Marital-History Data From 145
Census Bureau Surveys
Martin O'Connell
Part IV: Household Composition and Family Relationships
10 Mapping Children's Living Arrangements With a 159
Relationship Matrix
Peter D. Brandon
11 Is Single~Parent Family a Misnomer Misdirecting Research 179
and Policies?
Martha Hill and Paul Callister
12 Cohabitation and Measurement of Family Trajectories 199
Wendy D. Manning and Ron E. Bulanda
13 Measuring Poverty With Different Units of Analysis 221
John Iceland
14 Measuring Gay and Lesbian Couples 235
Gary J. Gates and Randall Sell
15 Including the Military and the Incarcerated in Surveys 245
of Families
William D. Mosher
Part V: Becoming a Father
16 Male Relationship and Fertility Data in the NLSY 263
Frank L. Mott, Dawn S. Hurst, and Thomas Gryn
17 Counting Dads: Improving Estimates of Teen Fatherhood 285
Scott Boggess, Gladys Martinez, Carolyn Bradner Jasik,
and Laura Duberstein Lindberg
18 Qualitative Insights for Studying Male Fertility 303
William Marsiglio
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CONTENTS vii
19 Taking Stock: Do Surveys of Men's Fertility Deliver? 325
Christine Bachrach
Part VI: Fathers and Fathering
20 Resident Father Involvement and Social Fathering 335
Sandra L. Hofferth, Natasha Cabrera, Marcia Carlson,
Rebekah Levine Coley, Randal Day, and Holly Schindler
2 1 Measuring Contact Between Children and Nonresident 375
Fathers
Laura Argys, Elizabeth Peters, Steven Cook, Steven Garasky,
Lenna Nepomnyaschy, and Elaine Sorensen
22 Measuring Support to Children by Nonresident Fathers 399
Steven Garasky, Elizabeth Peters, Laura Argys, Steven Cook,
Lenna Nepomnyaschy, and Elaine Sorensen
Part VII: Conclusion
23 Progress Made, Gaps Remain: Final Observations 429
Sandra L. Hofferth and Lynne M. Casper
References 437
Author Index 469
Subject Index 479
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Preface
The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, which
comprises 20 federal agencies, was established to promote "coordination,
collaboration and integration ... of Federal data on child and family issues
and conditions."
To carry out this mission, the Forum initiates activities to improve federal
statistics on children and families. The Forum's Data Collection Commit
tee, in collaboration with many researchers and policymakers, undertook
a detailed review of federal statistics on marriage, divorce, remarriage, and
cohabitation, holding a conference titled "Counting Couples: Improving
Federal Statistics on Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, and Cohabitation,"
on December 13-14, 2001 (Federal Interagency Forum on Child & Family
Statistics, 2001).
Over the past several decades, dramatic changes have reshaped America's
families. Young adults have delayed marriage. Cohabitation before marriage
has become more commonplace. One in three women giving birth is now
unmarried, up from 5% in 1960. The proportion of children under 18 living
in single-parent families rose from 23 % to 31 % between 1980 and 2000,
reflecting increased rates of both nonmarital childbearing and divorce.
This transformation in U.S. families has profound implications for
policymakers, but our data collection systems have not been sufficiently
modified to keep pace with this transformation. It is clear that family trends
have had important effects, both positive and negative, on the lives and
well-being of children and adults and on the ways in which families func
tion. Effective economic and social policy depends, in part, on the abil
ity to understand and address the changing shape and needs of American
families. This, in turn, requires valid and reliable data on marriage, divorce,
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PREFACE
remarriage, cohabitation, and the family situations of children over time at
the national, state, and local levels.
Policymakers use statistical data for a variety of purposes. Data provide
basic point-in-time descriptions of the current composition of families and
households in the United States; they map trends in family formation and
structure; and they help audiences understand the causes of family change
and how they affect the well-being of children. Statistical data are used for
developing and targeting policies and intervention strategies, such as those
currently envisioned to strengthen marriage, and for evaluating whether
programs and strategies are working properly and meeting intended goals.
In December 2001, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family
Statistics convened the Counting Couples conference chaired by Lynne
Casper and Jason Fields to assess how some of the major agencies in the fed
eral statistical system were meeting the need for data on marriage, divorce,
and cohabitation. More than 90 professionals from federal and state statisti
cal agencies, policy organizations, and academic and research organizations
participated.
Workshop participants overwhelmingly agreed that the federal statistical
system can and should improve consistency and accuracy in how it mea
sures family structure and family transitions such as marriage, divorce, and
cohabitation. Basic information is needed not only at the national level,
but also at the state and local levels, where responsibility for policymak
ing is increasingly shared. Participants also emphasized the need to better
understand why family change occurs and the consequences it has for the
well-being of families, couples, and children. They called for improved data
on several topics related to this need, including the role and presence of
fathers in the family, the relation between family structure and child well
being, the quality of couple relationships, family attitudes and norms, and
the causes and consequences of family change.
The conference identified 14 "Targets of Opportunity" for improving
data on marriage, divorce, and cohabitation and on the causes and conse
quences of union formation, dissolution, and family change. These 14 tar
gets evolved from a synthesis of the independent working group discussions
among conference participants. These targets of opportunity are outlined
in Table l.
This volume builds on the work begun by the Federal Interagency Forum
on Child and Family Statistics. Academic researchers led by the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Family and
Child Well-Being Network teamed up with staff from the Federal lnter
agency Forum on Child and Family Statistics to continue this important
work. These chapters address most of the topics in the targets of oppor
tunity and have greatly moved the agenda forward by critically analyzing
concepts and measures and their adequacy for describing families today.
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TABLE 1
Targets of Opportunity Identified by Working Groups
at the Counting Couples Conference
I. Measuring Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, and Cohabitation
• Develop cost-effective systems using vital registration and/or survey methods for
providing marriage and divorce data at the national, state, and local levels.
Conduct a feasibility study to assess the relative costs and benefits of vital registration and
survey methods for tracking trends in marriage and divorce and providing data at the state and
local, as weU as national levels , and implement recommended systems.
• Standardize marital status information across surveys.
CoUect comparable information on the marital status of people, with cohabitation included as a
category.
• Collect summary measures of marriage and cohabitation history.
Ascertain the number of times married and the date the current status began in surveys whose
major focus is not marriage and the family.
• Collect full marital and cohabitation histories.
Ensure that complete cohabitation and marital histories are collected on a consistent basis and
prodded in a user-friendly format.
• Include special populations.
Develop and study the feasibiUty for implementing strategies to conduct reliable marriage-and
family-related research on specialized populations such as institutionalized or group quarter
populations, ethnic and racial minorities, gays and lesbians, and adopted and foster children.
• Share existing questionnaires and knowledge.
Place examples of good questionnaire items from existing federal surveys on the childstats.gov
\Veb site to be used as templates for surveys seeking to improve data collection. Include
methodological reports that examine measurement quality.
• Improve tabulation and publication of marriage and family formation data.
Expand, improve, and standardize categories presented in tables and publications to reflect the
diversity of union status and family forms.
II. Measuring the Causes and Consequences of Marriage, Divorce, Remarriage, and Cohabitation
• Increase the detail of household relationship infonnation.
Identify the specific relationship of children to the adults in the household.
• Develop and test key concepts.
Undertake small-scale cognitive and qualitative studies to improve the measurement of
important concepts, including cohabitation, social fathering, men's fertility, father involvement,
and reasons for mother or father absence. Issue a report of the findings.
• Include measures of family-related values and attitudes.
Add a core set of attitudinal variables assessing attitudes, perceptions, and values toward family
and family life to surveys whenever possible.
• Obtain information for all fathers and mothers in studies of children.
\Vhen appropriate, expand survey (s ) to include information on all parents or guardians in the
household and all nonresident parents.
( Continued)
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